Clive Barker - Everville

So that's when the three of us decided to do something about it. Dolan had known the Jenkins girl because she'd used to come by his store, and when he'd think about what had happened to her he'd get choked up and he'd be ready to go hang the whore right there and then. Richie had a little girl of his own, who was right about Rebeeca's age, and he kept saying if we can't keep the children safe we weren't worth a damn. So that's what we did. We went out to the creek, we burned the house, and then we took the three of them up the mountain and hanged them.

And everyone knew what we'd done. The house burned almost to the ground and nobody came to put out the fire. they just stayed out of sight till we'd done what we'd done and we'd come back down again.

But that wasn't the end of it. The following year, the police caught a man from Scotts Mills who'd killed a girl in Sublimity and he told them he'd murdered Rebecca too, and dumped her in the creek.

The day I heard that I got crazy drunk, and I stayed drunk for a week. People looked at me different after that, like I'd been a hero because of what we'd done and now I was just a killer.

Dolan took it even worse, and he started getting real angry, saying it was everybody's fault cause everybody knew, and that was true in a way. Everville was as much to blame as we were, and I hope if this ever gets read people forgive me for writing it down, but it's the truth, I swear on my mother's grave.

And then, in the same abrupt manner it had begun, McPherson's testimony ended, begging more questions than it answered and all the more intriguing for that.

Reading it over again left Erwin more excited than ever. He got up and paced around his office, chewing over the options available to him. It was his duty to bring this secret to light, that was not in doubt. But if he did so in Festival Week, when the city was polishing itself to perfection, he would gain a much larger audience while making enemies of his friends and clients.

Part of him replied: So what? Hadn't he been telling himself it was time to move on while he was still young enough to relocate? And what better calling card could he have than to be the man who had uncovered the McPherson Conspiracy? The other part of him, the part that had grown comfortable in this corner of the world, said: Have a little care for people's feelings. Let this news out in Festival Week and you'll be a pariah.

He paced, and he chewed, and finally he decided not to decide, at least not yet. First he'd check his facts to be certain the confession wasn't just McPherson's invention. Find out if a child called Rebecca Jenkins had indeed been dredged from reservoir, if there had ever been a house by the creek, and f so, what had happened to those who'd occupied it.

He made a photocopy of McPherson's confession in Bettijane's office

(he'd given her the day off so she could drive into Portland and pick up her mother), then sealed the original in an envelope and locked it up in the safe. That Two done, he folded up the copy, slipped it into his jacket pocket, and went out for lunch at Kitty's Diner. He wasn't by nature a self-analytical man, but as he wandered down Main Street he couldn't help but be struck by the paradox of his present mood. Murder, suicide, and the dispatch of innocents filled his head, but he could not remember when he'd last felt so utterly content with his lot in life.

There were those among Dr. Powell's patients that late morning who had seen looks like this on Phoebe Cobb's face before, and they knew from experience that caution was the byword. Woe betide the patient who reported to reception five minutes late, or worse still attempted to justify their tardiness with some lame excuse. Being carted into the waiting room in six pieces would not have won a sympathetic smile from Phoebe in her present mood.

There were even one or two of the doctor's regulars Mrs. Converse, here for a fresh supply of blood pressure pills, and Arnold Heacock, in need of suppositories-who were familiar enough with Phoebe to have guessed the rea son for her demeanor, and would have been correct in their assumptions.

Five and a half pounds. How was that possible? She'd not touched a candy or a doughnut in three weeks. She hadn't allowed herself even to inhale near a plate of fried chicken.

How was it possible to eat so frugally, to deny her body everything it craved, and still put on five and a half pounds? was the air in Everville fattening these days?

Audrey Laidlaw had just stalked in, holding her belly.

"I have to see Dr. Powell," she said, before she'd even reached the counter.

"Is it an emergency?" Phoebe wanted to know, floating the question so as not to betray the trap beneath.

"Yes! Absolutely!"

"Then you should have someone drive you over to Phoebe replied. "they deal with emergencies there."

"It's not that much of an emergency," the Laidlaw woman snapped.

"Then you'll have to make an appointment." Phoebe consulted her diary.

"Tomorrow at ten forty-five?"

Audrey Laidlaw narrowed her eyes. "Tomorrow?" she said. Phoebe kept smiling, which was a reliable irritant, and was pleased to see the woman grinding her teeth. Only two months before, under circumstances not unlike these, the thin and neurotic Miss Laidlaw had marched out of the waiting room muttering fat bitch just loudly enough to be heard. Phoebe had thought there and then: You wait.

"Will you just tell Dr. Powell I'm here?" Audrey said. "I'm sure he'll see me."

"He's with a patient," Phoebe said. "If you want to take a seat@'

"This is intolerable," the woman replied, but she had little choice in the matter. The round lost, she retired to a chair by the window, and fumed. Phoebe didn't stare, in case she looked triumphant, but went back to sorting the mail.

"Where have you been all my life?"

She looked up, and Joe was leaning over the counter, his words little more than a whisper. She glanced past his broad frame to see that everyone in the waiting room was looking their way, the same question in every gaze: What is a black man in paint-spattered overalls doing whispering to a married woman like Phoebe Cobb?

"What time are you finished here?" he asked her softly.

"You've got paint in your hair."

"I'll shower. What time?"

"You shouldn't be here."

He shrugged and smiled. Oh, how he smiled. "Around three," she said.

"You got a date."

With that he was gone, and she was left meeting half a dozen stares from around the room. She knew better than to look away. It would instantly be construed as guilt. Instead, she gave her audience a gracious little smile and stared back, hard, until they had all dropped their gazes. Then, and only then, did she return to the mail, though her hands were trembling so badly she was butterfingered for the next hour, and her mood so much sweetened, she even found a few minutes for Audrey Laidlaw to be given something for her dyspepsia.

Joe could do that to her: Come in and change her way of being in a matter of moments. It was wonderful of course, but it was also dangerous. Sooner or later, Morton would look up at her from his meatloaf and ask her why she was sparkling tonight and she wouldn't be able to keep the truth from her lips.

"Joe," she'd say. "Joe Flicker. You know who he is. You can't miss him."

"What about him?" Morton would reply, his tight little mouth getting tighter as he spoke. He didn't like blacks.

"I'm spending a lot of time with him," she'd say.

"What the hell for?" he'd say, and she'd look up at the face she'd married, the face she'd loved, and while she was wondering when it had become so sour and sad, he'd start yelling, "I don't want you talking with a nigger!"

And she'd say, "I don't just talk to him, Morton." Oh yes, she'd love to say that. "We kiss, Morton, and we get naked, and we do-"